One of the Boys

As the most influential Democrat in New York State, widely touted by his friends as a future presidential candidate and garlanded for his victory in a hot primary fight in New York City two months ago (TIME, July 8), Senator Robert Kennedy naturally could expect to have the decisive voice in picking his party's gubernatorial candidate this year. Last week Kennedy discovered that this time around, at least, he would be no kingmaker. In fact, Bobby had to settle for the man he wanted least: a seasoned, big-city Irishman named Frank O'Connor who knows all the machine-made political tricks that Bobby learned up in Boston.

Kennedy might have made things easier on himself early in the year by embracing O'Connor, who as New York City council president was already the leading aspirant for the nomination. Instead, he shopped around for a man who would be both personally loyal to him and possessed of the New Frontier stamp. He finally settled on Eugene Nickerson, 48, a smooth, handsome type who is county executive in suburban Nassau. But Kennedy declined to fight openly for Nickerson. While Bobby waited in vain for Nickerson or someone else acceptable to him to gain momentum, O'Connor worked hard and successfully rounding up delegates for next month's state convention.

Last week Nickerson withdrew from the contest, and Kennedy invited O'Connor down to his McLean, Va., home for breakfast and a chat. In a sense, Kennedy was also coming to O'Connor's table. He pledged preconvention neutrality, which was all that O'Connor needed for the virtual assurance that he would get the nomination to oppose Governor Nelson Rockefeller's bid for a third term.

Mistaken Identity. A member of the noncerebral, one-of-the-boys school of politics, O'Connor, 56, is a smiling, pleasant fellow with wiry good looks and a wholesome family life (one wife, three sons). Born in New York City of immigrant parents, he worked his way through college (Niagara University) and law school as a lifeguard and merchant seaman. As a lawyer, he got some national attention for his conscientious -- and ultimately successful -- defense of Christopher Balestrero, a musician who was the victim of a mistaken-identity arrest.

O'Connor then won three terms in the state senate, where his record tended toward conservatism. He has changed his views considerably since then, now makes a big point of his liberalism. In ten years as Queens County district attorney, he established a solid but unexceptional reputation, staking out a claim to progressive principles. He was the only New York district attorney to oppose capital punishment. Last year he wanted to run for mayor but had to settle for the city council presidency nomination. The machine's candidate for mayor, Abraham Beame, lost to Republican John Lindsay, but O'Connor's vote topped Lindsay's by 210,000. The council presidency is a post of little power or responsibility, and O'Connor has had ample time to pursue the governorship.

Unmelted Pot. In the process, O'Connor has cemented one political alliance, but failed to overcome an old enmity. The friendship is with Hubert Humphrey--which partially explains Kennedy's coolness. Said a Humphrey aide in Washington last week: "A lot of close Humphrey friends are in the O'Connor organization. The Vice President has been helpful in many ways." One of the ways in which Humphrey tried to help was to appeal to the Liberal Party to give O'Connor its nomination, which normally goes to Democratic candidates in state-wide elections and can be worth as much as 300,000 votes. But the Liberals are determined to run their own slate.

Last week one Liberal leader seized on a quotation attributed to Roman Catholic O'Connor to accuse him of injecting religious and ethnic considerations into the campaign. In the not quite melted pot of New York politics, any political group, Liberals included, must pay heed to such considerations. O'Connor threw that gauntlet back into the Liberals' face by jokingly discussing his yet-to-be-found running mates. "What I'm looking for," said he, "is an upstate Protestant woman who is part Italian and part Negro."

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